Tag Archives: Fatemeh Fakhraie

Here’s what should have happened in the 17 years since then: Cape Town, the country’s oldest city with its reputation for being cosmopolitan, ought to have led the way in racial unity. It didn’t happen. Far away from verkrampte Pretoria and even more conservative Bloemfontein, Cape Town failed us. Her people withdrew into their racial enclaves and passed each other warily on the street.

I spent two and a half years in Cape Town before I fled for Johannesburg, like so many other black professionals (ahem). It wasn’t just the stories you’d hear about people of colour being turned away from nightclubs, or how the only other black people in your work place were generally the cleaners. It wasn’t even the near complete absence of racial integration.

What drove me slowly mad was how racism was an elephant in the room that you could not talk about. How white Capetonians would cringe and turn away when the topic came up, or look at you in blank confusion and ask why you were so obsessed with race. It was how, yes, there is racism everywhere in South Africa but in Cape Town it is not possible to even discuss it. And how Cape Town, with its pristine beaches, its lofty Parliament buildings and history of activism, was somehow supposed to be better than that.

And in our haste to one-up each other in the Being Right game, South Africans have singularly failed to stop and listen to each other. It’s the black professionals like myself who fled the city, generally for Johannesburg, and didn’t consider what the glib statement “Cape Town is racist” really meant, and how a generalisation like that was itself prejudiced. - From “The black professional is not dead,” in The Mail & Guardian.

“Two things are important to me,” she says over a sushi supper in downtown Corvallis. “Justice and love, and both of them clicked for me in Islam.”

Fakhraie grew up in a family where religion was respected but not forced on her or her younger brother, Anayat, 24. Her father, born in Iran, did not practice his faith. Her mother, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, studied religion with another woman but didn’t attend services.

“I was raised as a white girl with a funny last name and a foreign dad,” she says. As an adolescent, she was “the black cloud” over her parents’ house. “I was sullen. I hated everything.” Today she says she and her family are close, but her brother, a screenwriter in Los Angeles, remembers her black cloud days.

“At Christmas, we’d be opening presents and she’d be sulking in the corner,” he says. “She didn’t want anyone to take pictures. ‘Do we have to do this?’ she’d complain. She embodied the quintessential teenager angst.”

“I could be a feminist and a Muslim,” she says. “I was a feminist before I knew what a feminist was.” Fakhraie’s mother was the family breadwinner and her dad was “Mr. Mom.” She remembers being upset that her mom came home from work and picked up household chores.

“It was like a double shift,” Fakhraie says. “Fairness has always been an integral issue with me.”

I Speak For Myself is a collection about connections: the spiritual to the secular. The public self to the private. One community to another. The point is perhaps made most clearly by Nousheen Yousuf-Sadiq in her essay, “Half and Half”:

After all, I am made up of two parts: my Muslim and American identities. My Muslim identity defined half of my personality, character and individuality, while the other half has been determined by my experience growing up as an American. The balance of the two makes me who I am: an American woman who has discovered her hijab is the greatest beauty secret of all.

Though the contributors’ professions and locations are diverse, some commonalities emerge in the stories shared here: curiosity, confusion (usually some variant of the question, “Oh, you’re really from America?”), and the spectre of Islamophobia that flared up in earnest after the Sept. 11 attacks: “We felt our very identity as Americans was being subjected to scrutiny, challenge, and contestation,” writes Washington Post contributor Hadia Mubarak.Continue reading →

All I know is that for me it is feminisms with an “s.” Feminism for me is so much more than women’s issues, it’s human rights. I think it’s important to pull it apart. One definition is not going to do it. I think it’s dangerous to have one definition of feminism.

Harmony Education Foundation honours Jessica Yee for her work in breaking down barriers of discrimination and fighting for social justice. Her advocacy and activism for a more inclusive and equitable Canada epitomizes our ideal of a “youth leader for social change”.

Just as a visual representation, this is Jessica’s life according to Twitter:

# about to go watch my sister warrior and fave Native hip-hop lyricist Lindsay Eekwol Knight throw it down at the University of Saskatchewan about 15 hours ago via web

hitting the road to Six Nations for Chiefs of Ontario HIV Young Leaders Forum today! 7:19 AM Nov 2nd via Twitter for BlackBerry®

Girl…celebrate with a nap!

Andrea Plaid

In addition to tirelessly working on the blog carnival, and being our resident Twitter socialite, the fabulous Ms. Plaid was recently spotted on a Women’s ENews panel about “Drawing the Line: Sex and Consent.” Here’s a clip of the live event:

Fatemeh Fakhraie

Fatemeh, in the midst of editing and writing, was also quoted in the LA Times, on the inclusion of Iran and Saudi Arabia on a new U.N. agency devoted to women’s rights.

Fatemeh Fakhraei,[sic] the editor of the U.S.-based Muslimah Media Watch, expressed similar concerns.

“It’s important to have representatives from the Middle Eastern region on this board, but it’s equally important to have representatives who are genuinely committed to improving women’s rights,” she wrote.

Arturo Garcia

Y’all see him every day on site – but did you also know that he moonlights as a DJ? Arturo, post a mix!

Nadra Kareem

Nadra Kareem is knee-deep in writing for TheLoop21.com, Change.org and About.com.

Thea Lim

Thea is buried in her next novel. She says “after four years of blogging, I am trying to learn to appreciate much slower modes of publishing. :)” But several of her articles for Racialicious are being reprinted in Canadian and American textbooks, including Canadian Content and Opposing Viewpoints.

Latoya Peterson

It’s been a good few weeks for media coverage.

The image at the top is from Essence Magazine’s November Race Issue, where they said:

“Latoya Peterson is like that whip-smart friend who effortlessly breaks down the nuances of White Privilege but can also gab about True Blood. As editor of the blog Racialicious, the 27-year old offers witty, fearless critiques of race and pop culture.”

I would transcribe the text, but it’s basically my bio and a quote about having women in front of and behind the camera. All of my comments about race ended up on the cutting room floor, which I expected.

It was great meeting Morgane, Lena, and Jen, but where there is feminism, there is always drama. (See here, here, here,here, and here.)

Last night, I was on a panel about the Future of Blacks in Television – soon as a video is up, I’ll link to it.

And on to our special guests…

While he’s not officially a member of Team Racialicious, he’s with us 100%, so we were thrilled to see the fabulous Phil Yu (aka Angry Asian Man) hitting the cover of KoreAM:

Race, Culture, and Identity in a Colorstruck World

About This Blog

Racialicious is a blog about the intersection of race and pop culture. Check out our daily updates on the latest celebrity gaffes, our no-holds-barred critique of questionable media representations, and of course, the inevitable Keanu Reeves John Cho newsflashes.

Latoya Peterson (DC) is the Owner and Editor (not the Founder!) of Racialicious, Arturo García (San Diego) is the Managing Editor, Andrea Plaid (NYC) is the Associate Editor. You can email us at team@racialicious.com.